How a video game addict sneaked into doing CS at India's top college - Part 1

I started studying for JEE Advanced at the beginning of 12th grade. A foolish decision, to start a year late, a time when most people are choosing to give up. Three things happened at once to push me to making such an extreme choice.

1. My father had to get a heart surgery
2. My sister moved to the US
3. The people I thought were my “ closest friends” kicked me out of the friend group.

It was a rough time. Covid had left me addicted to playing video games for 12 hours a day.

This, and long distance cycling(i did a 110 km long solo trip in a day) was my way to cope. I spent 4 months in a haze, trying to numb the pain from the three things above.

Then one day, while looking in the mirror, seeing this thin, awkward 15 year old look back, one thing suddenly became very clear.

If I didn't take action now, in 5 years, my future self would end up passed out in a dumpster somewhere, drunk out of his mind, too far gone to save. (almost 4 years have passed now, and I’m glad I had that wake up call)

Now what to do to fix this mess? The options did not look good. The dream was to go to college in the US, but by then it was too late to apply. With my fathers surgery, and sister having to pay for grad school, our financial condition was shaky, so that was ruled out for sure.(college in the US is EXPENSIVE as an Indian.)

The next best option was to take up JEE seriously. This sucked for its own reasons.

I had never planned on writing JEE (Indias Entrance exam to get into the top engineering colleges), even though i was already in a coaching class. Seeing kids with the inch thick glasses, studying for 14 hours a day, sent shivers up my spine. They seemed to have no life, no joy and no personality.

If you're not from India, this may sound strange to you. Getting into an IIT is hugely hyped here. The upside, prestige and opportunities, drives some parents to pressure their kids over years to get in.

From the 1.5 million kids that give the exam every year, most pin their whole self worth to their final All India Rank after these two (or more) years. If things don't go as planned, we end up feeling that we're “not good enough”. I know I did, for a long time. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

This whole time, I had been switching tabs from online classes to videogames- Apex Legends(~1000 hours) and Warframe(another ~1000 hours), my two most played ones. (there were others).

Being sincere from the beginning would have made what was to come so much easier, but it was too late now.